Rambles about stuff I like.

The racist basketball guy and equality is still bullshit

Pretty terrible how free speech is slowly but surely being eroded from our lives.

Take the latest example: a crazy old billionaire said a racist thing in private, and so now they’re banning him from the NBA. I’m not too sure exactly what he said, something about how he doesn’t want his girlfriend hanging around with black people. (Or that black people shouldn’t come to his games, or something. And also, his girlfriend is half-black…) Whatever he said, it was racist.

But he’s still free to say it. Despite how abhorrent the sentiment, he’s still allowed to basically say whatever he wants, as long as it’s not incitement to violence. (Shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre.)

Actually, now that I think about it, that’s not a particularly good example. He did say whatever racist stuff he wanted, but then when it was broadcast to the world, people began excoriating him. I guess the bigger problem I have is that he yells stuff in a fight with his girlfriend, and it’s held against him. That’s what I don’t like. I think one should be allowed an expectation of privacy – especially in the heat of the moment.

Yeah, that’s more my deal, it’s that the expectation of privacy has gone out the window.

Well, not really. There’s still that Mozilla guy who got fired (or forced to step down) because he gave money to an “anti gay marriage” bill. That’s a free speech shut down.

As far as I know, the Mozilla guy didn’t discriminate against gay people at work or let it affect his hiring policy. So why should he be fired for some “politically incorrect” opinions. We don’t even hear his side of the story! Just – nope, you support a thing we (the mainstream) don’t support, so therefore your ideas are scary and dangerous, and so you must be fired.

This political correct bullshit creeps into our lives, and it doesn’t seem to me like many people notice. Ideas like, “We are all equal.” What utter nonsense.

The equality thing is particularly galling to me, as I’m a mathematician, so I deal with equalities every day. The word equal means “the same”, “interchangeable”, “identical”, etc… When someone says, “Men and woman are equal.” That’s an unequivocally false statement. Men and women are distinctly different.

In fact, any two people are different – by definition, you are a person – one person – there is no other you, and therefore, no one – indeed, nothing on the planet – is equal to you.

But if we even stray away from the dictionary definition of equal, and interpret “equality” as meaning, “equal opportunities”, “equal under the law” or “equal outcomes” – then again, all of those ideas are ridiculous bullshit.

People can’t have equal opportunities by virtue of people being different. Wealthy people will always have more opportunities than poor people. The solution here isn’t to take money from the rich and give to the poor – that just makes everybody poor. But people in different countries have different opportunities – people have more opportunity to ski in Switzerland than they do in the Arizona badlands. The solution here isn’t to force everyone to live in the same place.

Equal under the law is a crock – people have different lawyers, each of different quality. Better lawyers give me a better opportunity to win my case.

Equality is a crock.

Anyhoo, whatevs, relax and smoke a doob bud. Enjoy the decline. Laugh and shake your head at this nonsense.